A friend of our family is a high school science teacher who has a passion for getting kids excited about science. So I was thrilled when he offered to drive halfway across the state to give our kids an in-home science lesson, complete with ooey-gooey edible experiments! Here’s Tim reading to our kids from one of his childhood science books (featuring the Peanuts characters – so cute!):
And here he is helping the kids make their very own rock candy. It took a whopping NINE cups of sugar to make the syrup!
After boiling the sugar and water together, he let the kids add different food colorings to their glasses, then stuck a wooden skewer in for the sugar to crystalize around. I nearly had a heart attack letting the kids near food coloring, but we all emerged unscathed!
Tonight, after waiting the necessary week for the crystals to form, we attempted to remove the skewers. Only one of the glasses worked, but I figured that was a valuable lesson in trial and error for the kids (let alone a lesson in patience for us all as we eagerly waited a week to eat that sugar!):
After the rock candy, Tim embarked on what I would consider the messiest science experiment my kids (and kitchen) have ever seen: Oobleck! I have a vague memory of making oobleck myself as a kid, but now thanks to Tim’s teaching, I now know that oobleck is a non-Newtonian liquid – meaning, it has characteristics of both a liquid and a solid. So when you dip your hand in the cornstarch/water mixture, it feels like a liquid, but then you can squeeze and grab it like a solid, and as soon as you take your hands out, it drips off like a liquid again. It was crazy! And fun! And very, very, VERY messy! But very worth it! We can’t thank Tim enough for his thoughtfulness and expertise!
Very Very Cool !!!!